Page 58 of Lucy Undying

Rahul navigates to the nearest bookshop on my list, a tiny place sandwiched between a café and a library. Before I can move to get out, Elle grabs the box. “Won’t be a minute!” She closes the door and confidently strides into the store.

“I feel like I ought to say something encouraging here,” Rahul says. “Or ask follow-up questions about your family’s cult, or your future plans. But I’m stuck on the fox chasing you. Does it belong to that scary lady? Is it somehow, I dunno, trained? A sort of watchfox? Or do you just have genuinely shit luck and attracted the attention of a rabid wild animal in addition to all your other problems?”

I’d hoped dangling a shiny cult in front of him would make him forget about the fox. I don’t have any explanation that will make his world make sense again. At least I know he and Anthony have seen the fox, too, and that it’s definitely real. It’s comforting. It helps quiet that voice in my head.

The best explanation I can give him is the one with the most room for him to interpret it however he wants. “Everything my family touches is cursed, including that house and its history. So maybe the fox is haunted. Or maybe it’s rabid and I have the worst luck in the world, which I will also blame on my family.”

Rahul frowns, tugging distractedly on his thick beard. He didn’t take any of that as a joke. “After his mum died, Anthony broke out in hives. Came out of nowhere. Horrible red streaks, swollen and painful, all over his torso, back, and arms. We saw so many doctors and specialists, and no one could give us a reason they appeared like that, or a solution for treating them. Eventually the hives faded. I believe it was his mother, clawing at him on her way out of this life. Trying to make him suffer one last time. Causing him pain was her only way to be remembered. To matter.”

I reach forward and squeeze his shoulder. He puts his hand over mine and shifts, turning around to smile at me. “Anthony’s free of his mother now. You will be too, soon. And Anthony and I will help however we can. Including a call to Animal Care and Control.”

I laugh. “You’ve already helped. Believe me. You don’t need to do anything more.” Plus, I need to keep him and Anthony out of harm’s way, especially now that Ford is here. But I’m still determined to give them a gift. I don’t think Dickie and the other monsters actually care about the properties here. Once I leave, they’ll all be busy trying to find me anyway.

Still, maybe the impulse is selfish of me. Like Anthony’s mom, I want to leave an impact as I disappear. A huge gesture so that I know at least somewhere in the world, two good people will think kindly of me. If I were really selfless, I’d cut Rahul off right now. Keep him out of my dangerous orbit entirely.

But the idea of Lucy’s house—that’s how I think of it now, as hers, no matter who else it belonged to—going to Goldaming Life makes me so angry I feel sick. No. I’m taking at least that small thing back on my way out.

Elle appears on the sidewalk, box gone. She climbs in the back of the car and hands me a shockingly full envelope. I peer inside and find it bursting with pounds.

“Holy shit.” I thumb through the bills, doing a quick count. “This is so much more than I thought I’d get.”

“You had some gems in there.” Then she smiles, her dimples mischievous punctuation points on either side of her mouth. “And I’m extremely persuasive when I decide to be.”

I don’t realize I’m crying until she puts her arm around me. Then she gives Rahul a new address as our destination.

“Another shop?” I ask. “We didn’t get the paintings, though.”

“No. We’re going to my flat,” she says.

“We can’t. It’s not safe for you to be around me anymore. For either of you. I should—”

Elle interrupts. “You told me the truth and gave me the information I needed to make an informed decision. This is my decision.”

Rahul turns onto the route that will take us to Elle’s address. “I feel the same. I’ll be your getaway driver for any and all cult rescues.”

I don’t know how to thank them. They’ve already done more for me than they know, just by listening and believing me. My throat tightens. Elle doesn’t let go of me. I never want her to.

Rahul drops us off after making me promise to call him when I need a ride anywhere else. Elle’s neighborhood is nothing like Hillingham’s. Apartments squat above shops, half of which are vacant. It doesn’t seem dangerous so much as stalled. Like people and industry had moved on, and these streets were left behind, waiting and hoping someday people would come back.

Elle’s flat is above a chip shop, one of the only open businesses. The air outside smells warm with salt and grease. Normally that would entice me, but right now it makes me feel queasy.

She unlocks a faded red door on the street level. We walk up a narrow, utilitarian set of stairs to a second door, which reveals her surprising flat. I had hoped to get more insight into who Elle is, but it’s so nondescript it could be anyone’s. There’s a sofa and a chair in neutral beige with a plain coffee table in the center of the living area. A small round dining table with two chairs nudges up against a clean but dated kitchen. A couple of paintings hang on the walls, but they have all the soul of something purchased at a discount bulk store.

“How long have you lived here?” I ask.

Elle pats the beige couch like she might pet a dog tied up in front of a store. “Since I got back to London. It came furnished. Doesn’t make sense to invest in pieces I love until I’m settled. And I’m never settled.” She doesn’t laugh to turn it into a joke.

I put my bag down and cross the room to her, slipping my fingers around her wrist. I need to hold her in place. To anchor her and make certain she listens. And to watch her when I say this, so I can be sure she isn’t just showing me what she thinks I want to see.

“It really is dangerous to associate with me. If the people in charge think you know where I am once I run, they might come after you. I want you to understand all the risks. They’re rich beyond belief and have absolutely no morals.”

“You don’t want to lie to me so I won’t be scared?” Her tone is teasing, but there’s something there. Some history I’m not privy to.

“I wouldn’t be lying to keep you from being scared, I’d be lying to keep you with me.” I pause, my throat tight. “I want to keep you with me. But not if it gets you hurt. I meant what I said about Goldaming Life. They’re monsters. Figurative and literal. I can’t keep you safe from them.”

Elle puts her free hand on my cheek. Her expression isn’t what I expected. I was bracing for fear and alarm. Ready to watch in real time as she closed herself off from me. Instead, her face is impossibly tender. Tears pool in her eyes, such a dark blue in some lights they look almost black. The blue of the bottom of the sea, the blue of crushing depths and endless, blissful cold. “You really aren’t going to lie to me for my own good? To protect me from things too awful for me to understand?”

“Lying about the existence of monsters never saved anyone from falling victim to them.”

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